


Zer0 oneshots

by Patherfind



Series: Zer0 pain [3]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gunshot, Injury, Pain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 02:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19076008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Patherfind/pseuds/Patherfind
Summary: More suffering for our favorite assassin. Sorry.





	1. Stumble

Gunfire rang overhead, nearly deafening to any normal person.   
Zer0 stared at the barrel of their weapon, grumbling softly and fiddling around with the magazine, hands moving in a jagged way, giving little tremors. It was ungraceful of the assassin. Frustration arched up their back like static, demanding to be slammed into a wall. 

But the assassin refrained, letting out a breath and gently placing the sniper aside, checking for a different one.It was hard enough to work in these conditions when their hands responded accordingly, but...   
Red light lit up the front of Zer0’s visor, displaying in bright red, ***%#^**. 

A few unintelligible words fell beneath their mask, sounding more like garbled nonsense than anything that they would say. Time was growing thin. A gun jam, now? Of all times! In the midst of combat.  
A bullet grazed dangerously close to cover, causing the assassin to give a small twitch. Their armor still was rank with slag, making it dangerous to peek out, but psychos were surely approaching. 

Zer0 took a shock pistol from their belt, getting into a crouch and taking a breath, pain pressing most thoughts out of their mind.   
“..Slagged...” Zer0 said over their Echo-feed, before adjusting and tightening their grip on the inferior weapon.   
BANG.  
A grenade went off nearby, close enough for even the assassin to stagger. Through their head protection, they could still hear ringing. 

If their teammates answered, Zer0 couldn’t comprehend it through the lazy haze put over their mind, and burning coursing through their veins. Their pulse pressed uncomfortably close to them. Zer0 could feel his hands tremble again. Blood seeping through the skin clinging suit, feeling cold in the almost-night air. 

With a grunt, they pressed themselves to the side of cover and quickly tried to find a target. To the left, another bandit stood beside a nomad. Both were pulling the pins on grenades as Zer0 spotted them.   
**!**

The bandit-made bombs flew through the air. In a split second, Zer0 was out of sight and dashing for higher ground. It would be safer there. In their mind, they could almost feel a bullet graze. Some force moved them forwards though. With a thud, Zer0 collapsed behind the new vantage point as their cloaking device ran out of power. It needed to recharge now. 

Blood continued to drip... Now from two new wounds in them. Zer0’s swaying vision started getting darker than their visor made it, making it hard to focus. The shots in the air sounded far away. They could hear shouting...  
 **D:**

Their visor briefly lit up, but the light went out a fraction of a second later. Attention need not be drawn this way. Their team needed them, no sniper support now...  
But all of the energy was gone from the assassin now.   
They knew they could trust their team though, but their own safety? An unknown. Whatever it was, though, they could deal with it in the morning...


	2. Loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zer0 uh. Sorry man. I know it’s loud ;;

Noise, cancelling, loud, disruptive. Such a grating thing. Peace cannot truly exist in a place where noise does as well.

Paralyzing blasts of sound, echoing in their mind, bouncing around and destroying everything in sight. All this anguish, unnoticed by their teammates. On the battlefield they remained silent, killing as they had to to ensure everyone left alive. Flanking and weaving between enemies with purpose, flowing like liquid and spraying blood in their wake. 

The sounds never really left. Their mind’s eye displayed them, floating among colorful lights. Shocking, bad. They could only silently suffer it all. 

Zer0 would have to find a way to fix their armor... Make the dreaded audio go away, take its tendrils with it. Even outside of combat, everything was so loud. The dripping liquid of broken pipes. The cacophony of noise produced by wind flowing through broken roof tiles. The whirring of artificial lights, distant screams from who knows where.

How was the assassin supposed to function? Of course they stuck their hand in a toaster. There’s too much. In the world with its colors muted, it was still not a low enough volume. If anything, the false peace was worse than the bloody chaos of murdering and gunfire. That filled them with excitement, that being a worthy challenge, their life on the line. But... This.

A journey can only take one so far away before they are drawn back.

Grassy hills. Peaceful. The starkly dressed assassin sat atop a hill, breath evening out. The only sound, wind fluttering stray strands of grass. The sun beat down harshly, only midway through its cycle. But the glare of it was not blinding...  
The sound, muffled and tranquil. Finally. They can achieve peace... 

RING  
RING RING RING

Was it their senses deceiving them? The dreaded ringing making a random and unwelcome return, filling them with discomfort.

The buzz on their wrist confirmed this to not be the case. A call. Ignored. A text. Text was quiet... Fine. It demanded their location. 

Zer0 stared at the message and just, gave a small sigh. They typed back a cryptic answer. Though it was very specific. Coordinates. Along with a message...  
“I’m not going back. Do not call me again . . There is enough noise in the universe.” 

It was an odd thing. Zer0 turned off their Echo, feeling some tension leave them. Of course, their mind remained on high alert. Small shifts in the land noticed only by them...  
Though nice here, it was still Pandora. Dangerous as hell and armed to the teeth. 

What brought them from their solitude was a rumble in the sky. The scent of ozone, the sharp smell of grass and dew.   
Rumbling clouds rolled... Thunder crackled between them, rolling its dangerous claws. Growling. Breaking the veil of softly moving plants. Wind howled. Loud and unforgiving.

Zer0 only moved when a raindrop hit their helmet. Perhaps... It was not meant to be. 

...  
Months, perhaps passed.

Ice and snow littered their once pitch armor. Water sloshed at their boots. Their mind was abuzz. Haikus overlapping each other, demanding purpose and focus to be formed. It was not. Ice crackled and distant Bullymongs screamed.  
Coolness numbed their digits and made it difficult to walk straight. They managed it.   
...They knew how to make the world yield and shut up, but it was against the rules to do so. There were two solutions, actually. A third lingered in the back of their mind.

They could.. Take off their helmet. No, that would make it worse. I know.  
Stick their head underwater. Results, unknown. Likely result: Underwater noise, drowning.  
Option three: drown. Very... Ineffective. 

Flurries of snow whipped into their damaged suit. Water was tricking into it already as they kicked chunks of ice. The water was getting deeper, they could feel less and less of themselves. Ringing rose like a tidal wave in their head, overwhelming both the sound of the torrenting wind, and their swirling thoughts. 

Their vision took a pitch and they fell. Face first into the water— Their head hit ice and their vision swam. They must have taken a bad step. The ice beneath their visor was cracked. They did not move... Cold swept over their exposed back. Water sloshed their legs and back, swimming their front and filling them with a chill.

...  
Sleep finally came for the lanky assassin. 

—-

It was somehow expected when they woke up warm. Covered in blankets. In a room with all the curtains drawn... a crackling fire was somewhere to their left. Whatever they were lying on was comfortable. But they couldn’t move...? Their mind was fuzzy and their limbs felt heavy.

Zer0 sighed and closed their eyes once more, but they listened. Instead of blocking it all out....


End file.
